Now that you've got Cliff Lee.... what do you do?

[JosephC]

I see three options here...
1]. You try to resign him for next year. He is obviously a very good pitcher and having him aboard next year would be great.

2]. Trade him at the deadline for bats or minor league talent.

3]. Let him walk at the end of the year and get your two draft picks.




Looking at how the Mariners are playing, what would you do?
I would take option 2 and trade him at the deadline. Letting him walk does no good unless we are battling out a division spot. You might as well trade him for some closer to major league talent.

[Igoe4Mariners]

Right now with the way we're going, you've got to look at trading him at the deadline. However if we come out and win a few in a row and have a nice stretch that gets us back at the top of the AL West, we might want to hold onto him.

If we were to somehow make the playoffs (highly unlikely at this point), I say we try to resign him and use the money we generate in a playoff run to get us a big bat.

[clarknova]

I agree with everything Igoe4Mariners said about Cliff Lee, with one caveat. If they look to resign him, something that would shore up our starting rotation for half a decade... They'd need to increase their budgeted payroll by 20 million a year. If they keep it under 100 million, or even slightly over, there's not enough money to address our offensive needs.